Innovation movements accelerating in every area with the Imperial Edict of Reorganization Tanzimat acquired a different dimension with the appearance of the first private newspaper after 1860. Artists of the era have made the best of the strength of literature in changing socio-cultural perceptions of the society and, in sharing their political views with wide masses of population. Novels, as a genre introduced with translated novels after 1860 has been effectively used in this social transformation. In the novel “Is It Modern or Bigoted?” evaluated in this context, Mehmet Murad Bey, who was one of the leading names of the Young Turcs movement and who became well-known as Mizancı Murad with the newspaper Mizan that he published in 1886, shared his views in vast range of domains from politics to economy, from bureaucracy to education. Presenting his novel with the thought of writing a “National novel”, Mizancı Murad has pointed out the “system of education” as the only remedy to save the country from backwardness.

Anahtar Kelimeler
Literature of the Tanzimat era, Tanzimat era novel, Turkish educational history, Mizancı M